As the demand for wireless communication applications and systems continues to expand, the availability of frequency spectrum becomes increasingly scarce. To address the increased pressure on limited frequency spectrum resources, a number of frequency bands are now being shared among different devices that communicate using different communication protocols.
An example of a shared frequency band is the 2.4 GHz frequency band for unlicensed devices. Among the devices that share the 2.4 GHz band are wireless local area network (WLAN) devices communicating according to various standard protocols of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard (e.g., the IEEE 802.11b protocol, the IEEE 802.11g protocol, etc.), and Bluetooth devices communicating according to the Bluetooth protocol.
However, other unlicensed devices are also permitted to share the 2.4 GHz band with IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth devices. Therefore, it is important for these other unlicensed devices to arrange their communications in such a way as to minimize or avoid interference from other devices, and particularly Bluetooth devices, with which they share the spectrum. Indeed, in general, it is desirable for devices which share common spectrum resources to minimize or avoid interference from other devices using that spectrum.
What is needed, therefore, is method of avoiding interference when using shared spectrum resources, and a device capable of executing such a method. What is also needed is a method for non-Bluetooth devices to share spectrum with Bluetooth devices operating in the same area, and a non-Bluetooth device capable of sharing spectrum with Bluetooth devices operating in the same area.